The rays had been on at very low power, the air only slightly ionized, but as Arcot turned a rheostat, the intensity increased, and the air in the path of the beam shone with an intense blue. The relux plate, subject now to eddy currents, since there was no other path for the energy to take, began to heat up rapidly. "I'm going to close the switch into the coil now," said Arcot. "Watch the meters." A relay snapped, and instantly the ammeter jumped to read 4500 amperes. The voltmeter gave a slight kick, then remained steady. The heavy coronium spring grew warm and began to glow dully, while the ammeter dropped slightly because of the increased resistance. The relux plate cooled slightly, and the voltmeter remained steady. "The coil you see is storing the energy that is flowing into it," Arcot explained. "Notice that the coronium resistor is increasing its resistance, but otherwise there is little increase in the back E.M.F. The energy is coming from the rays which strike the polarized relux plate to give the current." He paused a moment to make slight adjustments in the controls, then turned his attention back to the screen. The kilovoltmeter still read twenty. "Forty-five hundred amperes at twenty thousand volts," the elder Arcot said softly. "Where is it going?" "Take a look at the space within the right angle of the torus coils," said Arcot junior. "It's getting dark in there despite the powerful light shed by the ionized air." Indeed, the space within the twin coils was rapidly growing dark; it was darkening the image of the things behind it, oddly blurring their outlines. In a moment, the images were completely wiped out, and the region within the coils was filled with a strangely solid blackness. "According to the instruments," young Arcot said, "we have stored fifteen thousand kilowatt hours of energy in that coil and there seems to be no limit to how much power we can get into it. Just from the power it contains, that coil is worth about forty dollars right now, figured at a quarter of a cent per kilowatt hour. "I haven't been using anywhere near the power I can get out of this apparatus, either. Watch." He threw another switch which shorted around the coronium resistor and the ammeter, allowing the current to run into the coil directly from the plate. "I don't have a direct reading on this," he explained, "but an indirect reading from the magnetic field in that room shows a current of nearly a _hundred million amperes!_" The younger Morey had been watching a panel of meters on the other side of the screen. Suddenly, he shouted: "Cut it, Arcot! The conductors are setting up a secondary field in the plate and causing trouble." Instantly, Arcot's hand went to a switch. A relay slammed open, and the ray projector died. The power coil still held its field of enigmatic blackness.